Adrian Piper is an artist from New York. She used her art to prove a point that people who stand out (i.e wear strange clothing or have huge signs on there bodies) are actually invisible to others. Reason being is because people are embarrassed / too frightened to go near them and automatically judge them. She was very big in the racial circle and because she had lighter skin and because of this she felt that she was treated very differently.

An example of Adrian Piper’s work. This is one of her ways of standing out and a good example of ignorance, as the people are looks and moving away. To be honest i wouldn’t really call this art, I would say it was more of a publicity stunt, but that is my own honest opinion. I feel that she just wanted people to notice her and what she called so called “art”.

Another example of her artwork. Again this is another piece where she is expressing her own personal feelings. Trapped is the word that comes to mind and also the expression that she wants people to feel sorry for her. The view point goes directly to her face so it is clearly the first thing that people will see beyon the huge table and chairs etc..

I feel that she could have expressed herself in different ways. As you may have gathered in my honest opinion I do not find her work very interesting, I believe that sympathy isn’t a work of art and I cannot really understand her messages.

Raghunath Krishna Joshi was an indian born typhographer. He started work in 1956 in Mumbai, Western india. He was also part of an advertising agency called FCB Advertising agency which is classed as one of the top three advertising agencies in the united states of america, which he created brands for. FCB is now part of Interpublic which is the four biggest media groups.

Raghunath then started teaching type design. Type design was his forte and was a well known designer within Indian typography. He created what was known as his own language within Indian typefaces.

This is an example of some Gujarati typefaces that he created. I even recognize these typefaces myself as they are quite well known.

Raghunath Krishna Joshi was an energetic guy that liked to educate others. He sent messages on cards to friends with examples of his work so that he could have there opinions on how he could improve them, as he always wanted to create something new. He started to take lectures at art colleges around the world,in cities such as London, New York etc… 

Back when Raghunath was designing computers were not available to use so most of the letter forms that h designed were by hand. His typography is simple and clean and represent symbols. I personally find that if i had to design these I would probably stuggle as I do not know the language and I also find the type hard to understand. I find this very inspiring and pushes memore to challenging myself in my future work.

Doyle Dane Bernbach were a revolution to the creative industry of advertising. Their theory was to understand the audience and know who you are designing for.

They are a new york based company who are famous for designing for Volkswagen.

There theory was to change the way the advertising was perused by the general public and not to lye within their advertisements. Back then Graphic designers were called commercial artists. Art directors and copywriters were the most important people in the industry. 

An example of their work for the car company Avis. As they wanted to tell the truth within their advertisements, they knew they were the second best car hire company in america against Hertz which was first place, so they told the public the truth. These series of adverts were telling the public that even though they are second best they try even harder with service and quality of vehicles. In my personal opinion i feel that this stands out pretty well because it is simple and creates a simple message. It is not the most colourful piece of advertisement but this is what the companies aim was.

This is a really good example of the honesty in advertising that this company was trying to produce. This poster was produced by the art director Helmut Krone who also had a great success creating the Volks Wagen advertisments which I spoke about in my last blog.

I found this quite an interesting statement that they put across. This is basically saying that the VW beetle is reliable, very popular and what people depend on.
The imagery is very simple and so is the text. This is a good example of “not lying” and target audience in advertising. This is an advertisement that is aimed at everyone because is is plain and simple with nothing in the background to encourage different audiences. This is why Doyle Dane Bernbach are so famous for changing advertisement, but in a good way.

Another fantastic message that they put across. This was to get people thinking. The imagery used works really well this the caption.

Keeping things simple and easy is the key to a good design. In my personal opinion the simplest designs can be the most creative.

 For example i found this advertisement for coca cola. It is quite a powerful image supported by a plain white background. It creates quite a statement for Coca Cola because it is very eye catching. It also withholds a simple typeface which is easily legible. I find that this is a fantastic piece of design, it beings you eye straight to the point and doesn’t confuse you. I find that the colours are not so simple but it fits in really well with the composition.

I adore simplicity and like to reflect this within my own work. By over complicating images it can distract the audience from the message that is being put across.

This is an example of an over complicated design. When i first saw this with my own eyes in London’s Leicester square I wasn’t too sure on where to look first. Most of the advertisements have a lot going on at one time.

A good example of simplicity is looking at something and being able to remember it in an instant. That again is a key to good design. Over complicated designs can put people off, it can also make designs look a little tacky for example logos etc.. the most simple logos look a lot more professional. A simple symbol such as the apple logo is recognized world wide.

It is a simple shape that links to the company name extremely well. I would imagine that this would have took a lot of designing and hard work before this idea was created. Sometimes even the simplest of designs take the most work. A reasonable explanation for this is getting it right and trying to make it unique. It is quite hard to think of something so simple that hasn’t been designed before.

Helmut Krone

Helmut took the most over complicated designs to make them simple. From all the fancy advertisements which would show a dream world which we would all like to live in, he turned them into reality to show people who didnt live in hollywood and by a fancy beach that the product that was being advertised was for them too because not everybody lived the dream. He also made advertising quirky and fun, something to get you thinking.

A great example of his work for Volkswagen. This was advertised in America where the normal phrase is “think big”. A fantastic play on words and way of showing that not everything has to be big and extravagant to be unique.

John Webster

A television advertiser who was the creative director of a company called agency Boase Massimi Pollitt who created some of the most memorable television advertisement campaigns from the 70’s into early 2000’s. These are memorable because of the characters and people that were used within them. He used simple quotes and humor so these would be memorable to the viewers. The characters that were used in some of his advertisements were quite unique and are still used to this day. 

Information design is everywhere, in the street, post, on the news etc…
Examples of information design are street signs, maps, leaflets, graphs and many more. It has to be an easy design for everyone to understand. The basic typefaces that are used within information graphics are normally sans serif. Street signs and hazzard signs are normally in helvetica as it is very clean and not complicated to read, whereas serif typefaces could be complicated to the eye.

The London tube map. This is a very good example of information graphics. This is obviously created on Adobe illustrator. With its vibrant colours and simple sans serif typeface it is easy to read and to understand.

Richard Saul Wurman 

Richard Saul Wurman Is a graphic designer from Pennsylvania. He is famously known for his information graphics. He created numerous travel guide books and information booklets. The symbols and designs he used were really simple so it would be easier to understand by the public.

An example of a map that was designed by Richard. By the look of the graphics this was obviously designed a while back. He uses a lot of type but quite powerful images. He has obviously thought well about the colours and how they stand out on black.

Paul Mijksenaa

Created a book called The art of instructional design. He designed some of the most famous information design that you will possibly see everyday. Instructional design is based on signs and symbols, information to tell people what to do and where to go. It is important that these are designed correctly as is has got to be easy for people to understand. Being able to read something and understand a symbol quickly is the key to good information design, this is something that the public can understand with a quick glance because the symbol is easily recognizable to the brain, e.g. WC symbols, arrows etc… I think that designing something like this very interesting, mainly because i think it would be quite difficult to come up with such simple symbols, mainly on behalf of that there is almost a symbol for everything and to come up with more would be quite interesting. The most simple of designs can be the most hard work.

Areas of practice - Advertising

I have chosen advertising because it is something that I am deeply interested in and a subject in which i want to make a career out of once i have graduated. Advertising is seen everywhere on a day to day basis and is the key thing for nearly every business in the world. Advertising is about communicating to the public to draw them into buying the product or using the services that are being advertised. 

For example i enjoy looking at advertisements at bus stops and on buses. The ones that stand out to me are the ones with great photography and amazing designs, which you can tell that the designer has put a lot of thought into.

Most advertisements use a strap line to follow the brand logo so it is easy for the public to remember. Simple images and big text also make them easy to remember. Most brands normally have a series of posters for advertisement so that it is not always the same image but it links in to the others.

 These posters are two of my favorite, especially the cranberry digs granola poster. These two are a set of posters that ran throughout streets and bus stops. When i first saw this i had to stop and look mainly because it was pretty 3d and looks as though it is made out of cut paper. This made me quite exited about the new brand of chocolate that they were promoting. Good imagery can make anything look good.They are easily recognizable to Cadbury because of the logo and the specific purple that is used for their packaging. The images that are used for the posters compliment the flavours of chocolate.

Brand Identity

logos, images, mascots, typefaces, colours etc.. all a type of brand identity. the use of logos i personally think are the most common form of brand identity. For example the nike tick.

                                    Easily recognizable even without the name.

This is a classic example of brand identity but i feel that this is how it works. I found this as it was the first one that came to my head and probably will be the same with most people but that is the trick into creating a great brand i.d so it is easily remembered. The shape is very simple along with the big bold simple typeface. They don’t always have to be the same colour.

For example the posters that i have used above for cadbury all have the same colour. This is also another form of brand identity. They use a distinct purple, and also the glass and a half full logo. By seeing these in the shops or streets you automatically know what it is.

Three Act Structure

The three act structure is the basic beginning, middle and end of a film. The normally run at 30:60:30 which means 30 minutes for the beginning and the end and 60 minutes in the middle.

The beginning is normally getting to know the main characters, the setting and the start of the crises which is normally in the middle. It is not always a crises but it is the main event within the film with the most action and drama. The end of the film (the last 30 minutes) is where it resolves from the crises. This is where things start to pick up and the film starts to work its way out of the drama. This is a sequence of establish, crises and resolve.

The film that I am going to analyse is Cloverfield as it is quite dramatic crises scenes as it is about a monster that attacks the city of New York. 

Act 1. The 30 minute establish part of the film. 

The Film starts with the main characters Rob and Beth who are in full romance where unfortunately they split up and meet again awkwardly at a party where more characters were introduced. The whole film is based on being filmed by a video camera which someone had at the party.

Act 2. The 60 minute crises part of the film.

During in the party the crises scenes start to flow. They hear a loud noise out on the city streets which they run too to find a weird creature knocking down buildings and the statue of Liberty from a great height. Rob then realizes that Beth had gone back to her apartment which had been hit so he goes back to get her with their friends but unfortunately his brother dies in the process.

There is a diversion so they walk through the subways to avoid the monster but evil creatures are released down to the subway which kills another person.

Act 3. The 30 minute resolving of the film

Sadly most of the characters die but Beth is saved by Rob. They know that they are going to die so they take the video camera and record their last moments together. The camera then plays their happy times from when they were dating.

Character Design

Character design portrays the way they come across to the audience. Characters are normally stereotyped if they are good or bad.

Here is an example of Darth Vader and how you can tell he is evil just by looking at the costume.

This is a diagram of how I think they designed Darth and the reasons behind it. 

Interpretation

Illustrators and Illustrations develop throughout time as technology and art movements progress.

I am going to use snow white and the seven dwarfs as an example of how Illustrations and Interpretations of the characters have developed. The snow white character has been designed to look ‘sweet and innocent’ with bow in her hair and big colourfull dress and the dwarfs have a cute feeling about them with there big noses and smiley faces. Whereas the darker characters have been made to look evil by the colours that they are wearing such as black. This is an example of the first illustration for Snow White in 1937, designed for Walt Disney.
The mediums that are used seem really fine and the colours are quite dull but hold a lot of shadowing. This illustration is also quite busy, but would keep you guessing about who the characters are and what their roll is within the story.

My next example is a more recent interpretation on Snow White. This is a digitally created image with the same design to the characters. Compared to my last example the colour has changed within her clothing and skin tones but her general attire has not changed at all. The colour has also changed within the witch as she is not so dark and the dwarfs are a lot brighter.

I find that this doesn’t give away the plot to the story as it doesn’t show a lot of the characters, but by the facial expressions you can tell who is evil and who is good.

Within the modern world of illustration visual effects are quite important so by adding glows and shadows it makes the images stand out from the background and the images around it.

                           My own quick example of History of Practice

            This is an example of some of my history of research and practices.
                 Looking at artists for inspiration and practices of design. 

Delivery

Delivery is how an illustration is shown to the audience and clients. It portrays the message that is put across through the visual image. Illustration through advertising is a very popular way to deliver messages. An audience is important as it can be aimed at age and gender.

Here is an example of illustration on the font cover of a magazine. There is not really a title for this magazine but by the way it has been drawn you can tell that this illustration means ‘hidden’ or ‘hiding’ and that its target audience is possible 20 plus. You can tell the target audience by how it is drawn and the colours that have been used.